German Comic Con Berlin 2018

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Arrival and setup (19.10.2018)

After I already participated with K.I.T.T. at the German Comic Con Berlin 2016 and the German Comic Con Dortmund 16 as well as German Comic Con Berlin 2017, the third edition of the Berlin event was on my schedule for 2018 as well. This time there was no star guest announced for whom I absolutely had to go, but the events are always a lot of fun and with Giancarlo Esposito ("Breaking Bad", "Better call Saul") and Kristanna Loken ("Terminator 3") there were quite interesting guests with whom I would like to have a photo. Furthermore, this time AJ and Howie D. from the Backstreet Boys should finally be there, who unfortunately had to cancel at short notice twice already... Since the boys have helped to shape my generation, I would have liked to meet them as well.

On 19th October 2018 I drove to Berlin. On the way I had already noticed the eBay headquarters next to the Autobahn several times. Since I needed a short break anyway, I made a little detour to take a picture there, to be able to write on Facebook that there is K.I.T.T. today "on eBay". All for a corny joke ;)

Arrived in Berlin, I drove at first to a car wash to clean up the car properly. Afterwards I made a side trip to the Brandenburg Gate again this year to take a photo with K.I.T.T. before I drove to the STATION Berlin to set up the car for the Con and connect it to the external power supply. After the area around the Brandenburg Gate was closed last year due to the German Unification Day celebrations, I was able to take a nice photo this time.

Afterwards I went to the STATION Berlin - the new location of the German Comic Con. Once there, K.I.T.T. had to wait outside for a while, because the dealers blocked the entrance with their stuff. The first couple I had a nice chat with about K.I.T.T. turned out to be the owners of the Optimus-Prime-Truck from Hasbro - so we arranged a photo session for Sunday evening. Always funny, what coincidences I often experience :D

For the setup of K.I.T.T. there was not enough time later. I decided to do that on Saturday morning. After all I was able to enter the halls 2 hours before the audience. That was enough. My parking place was very good again this year. K.I.T.T. stood directly at the passage between the two main halls, so that almost every visitor was forced to pass him - it couldn't get better.

Day 1 - Saturday (20th October 2018)

On Saturday morning I set up everything: Connect the power supply, put the stop marks on the floor, change the steering wheel, polish the car again... The 2 hours passed by quickly.

From 09:00 AM the first visitors were let into the halls. I myself first went to the German dubbing actors, with whom you could do selfies for free and who willingly signed autographs. You could also have short voice recordings made for a small fee.

Also, the star guests arrived. I was not interested in Autographs that much this year. But I had promised my friend Ryan to sign him a plaque for his screenused Jetpack & Mohawk from Michael Rooker in "Guardians of the Galaxy", so I joined his table at 10:00 AM and thanks to the organizers I got directly there.

Rooker was in a very good mood. He joked with the photographers, greeted the fans, took pictures himself with his huge camera and even gave Lollis away to all autograph buyers.

Then I went back to K.I.T.T. to stow the signed badge directly in the car.

On arrival there, I noticed that Aaron Troschke (YouTuber with almost 1 million subscribers and winner of German "Celebrity Big Brother" 2014) was taking photos with the car. He was joined by Betty Taube (semi-finalist of "Germany's Next Topmodel" 2014), whom I admittedly didn't know, so I neglected to take my own pictures of her (I found out later that she also has almost 1 million followers at Instagram ^^^)

I offered them to take a seat in K.I.T.T., which they were obviously happy about, so that K.I.T.T. ended up in both of their Instagram story of the day. So I had at least some screenshots of it by the end of the day ;)

In return for providing K.I.T.T. I was again allowed to take some photos with the star guests. Altogether I had selected 12 guests in advance. Unfortunately Giancarlo Esposito ("Breaking Bad", "Better call Saul") cancelled his participation just in the night to Saturday... so there were still 11 guests left at 10 appointments (Backstreet Boys in Double-Shoot), which were spread over the whole day from 11:00 AM on. But I was always one of the first to go, so I had no real waiting times. That's why I managed to finish all appointments already on the first day. Here are my photos of the whole day in chronological order:

Beside the photo sessions there were stage panels all day long. Here the stars were on stage and answered fan questions. I first took part in the Backstreet Boys panel and also went to Michael Rooker.

My friend Ryan (whom I got the autograph for in the morning) wrote me that Rooker has been streaming all the time live at Instagram walking through the Con and also his panel, where he gave his cell phone to an employee who kept filming the whole thing. Rooker himself then began to walk through the audience with his microphone and "picked up" the questions personally.

I took the opportunity and contacted Michael so that he actually came to me. I didn't really have a question, but I just wanted to greet Ryan in the Instagram stream, which generated some laughs. Rooker also greeted Ryan. You can also find it in my video from the GCC 2018 later ;)

I spent the rest of the day jumping between K.I.T.T. and some panels (Jessica Henwick & Iain Glen from "Game of Thrones" and Kristanna Loken from "Terminator 3").

I also spent some time with the Backstreet Boys! Towards the end of the day, the lines at the autograph tables were smaller from time to time, so I took the opportunity to address Howie D. at K.I.T.T.. I had noticed that he seemed quite impressed when he passed right by the car on his way to a Meet & Greet... and actually he was interested in K.I.T.T.

But not only him... also AJ knew the car very well and promised to come by in any case to be allowed to sit behind the wheel. Well, I was curious whether it would really work out... That would be cool of course ;)

They were also not the only ones. Also numerous cosplayers used K.I.T.T. as a popular photo motif. And also the German dubbing actors Ingo Albrecht (voice of Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson) and Tommy Morgenstern (voice of Ryan Gosling, Chris Hemsworth and Benedict Cumberbatch) were very happy that they were allowed to take a seat.

Shortly before closing time "Alfi Hartkor" (twice unsuccessful participant of the castings of the German version of "American Idol") crossed my way again, who already wanted to have some photos with K.I.T.T. in 2017 - and also this year. And so the first day ended for me...

Day 2 - Sunday (21st October 2018)

Sunday morning, I used the opportunity to take some photos with the exhibited props in the (still) empty halls. I sat down in the "Stranger Things"-room and the "Big Bang Theory"-room, took a picture with Dixon's motorcycle from "The Walking Dead" as well as the Transformers truck and the X-Wing T-70 from ZMontagen, which I had already met at the Comicpark in Erfurt.

Since I had already taken all of my photo sessions on Saturday, I wanted to spend most of my time at K.I.T.T. today, hoping to get some nice photos with cosplayers and maybe even one or the other star guest. Because of the excellent location almost everybody came by here...

And also many of the star guests came to K.I.T.T. today. The first was the German dubbing voice actor Ralf David (voice of Luke Cage), followed by Joshua Mikel ("The Walking Dead"), Kristanna Loken ("Terminator 3") and Nathaniel Buzolic ("The Vampire Diaries", "The Originals").

In between K.I.T.T. became a popular photo motif for all kinds of cosplayers.

And after watching the recording of Michael Rookers Instagram live stream until the middle of the night, in which he strolled very entertainingly around the Con, I took the opportunity to invite him to K.I.T.T. as well after his panel, whereupon he said "Only if I may take a seat". Of course he was allowed to. And so he actually showed up at the car shortly afterwards and took a seat in it.

Also Mark Ryan (English voice of Bumblebee and actor from "Black Sails") came by, so I took pictures of him next to K.I.T.T. and, appropriately, next to the Transformers truck.

When I wanted to take a photo with the 8 heroes of the "Avengers Live" shortly afterwards, I met Tom Hopper ("Game of Thrones", "Black Sails", "Merlin"), who also stopped by K.I.T.T. shortly afterwards on his way to the panel.

In the dubbing voices area today I also met Gadah Al-Akel (German dubbing voice of Michelle Rodriguez and Jennifer Lopez) and Charles Rettinghaus (German dubbing voice of Jamie Foxx, Jean-Claude van Damme and Robert Downey jr. - except in "Iron Man"), whom I had already met last year. I made a selfie with both of them and of course got their autographs. Tommy Morgenstern also thanked me for being allowed to sit in K.I.T.T. with a message of the German voice of Ryan Gosling on my mobile phone for my wife and a funny saying by Butt-Head, whom he gave his voice in the German version of the series.

Also I talked to Ralf David (German dubbing voice of Luke Cage) for a longer time, who was very interested in K.I.T.T. and came back for a photo with his little son at the end of the day.

In the late afternoon Billy Boyd (Peregrin Tuk / Pippin in "Lord of the Rings") came by. Just as he was sitting in the car, the Backstreet Boys showed up to finally take a seat in the car. After their photo shoot at the other end of the hall they had taken the detour and even sang "Backstreet's Back, alright!" behind the steering wheel. AJ was very enthusiastic and would have liked to have K.I.T.T.'s steering wheel in his car as well...

So this time I even had 9 of 16 star guests and 4 of 8 dubbing voice actors in or at the car :)

Shortly before closing time I passed AJ and Howie once again in one of the halls to record a short greeting video for my wife. The guys were in a really good mood and sent her a very nice message...

Optimus Prime (21st October 2018)

When the con closed at 5:00 PM, I drove K.I.T.T. to the Transformers truck in the look of "Optimus Prime". I had met the owner directly on Friday when I arrived, so we had already arranged to meet there on Sunday evening.

And so my adventure German Comic Con ended again with a highlight. I had a lot of fun again the whole weekend, got to know a lot of nice people and I'm happy to see them again next year :)